Rambles about stuff I like.

TV still to watch

Welp, in honour of Peter Capaldi becoming the new Dr. Who, I downloaded the first season of The Thick of It, just to see why everyone loves his character so much. I haven’t watched any of the episodes yet, but as soon as I do I’m sure I’ll write a blog post about it.

The other one I downloaded was a show called Broadchurch, which is supposed to be some sort of crime drama starring David Tennant. It’s gotten rave reviews and recently aired on BBC Canada (or whatever channel airs that sorta stuff) so I thought I’d give it a shot. Again, still haven’t seen any of the episodes, but it’s in the pipe.

More stuff to watch: Spaced, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. (For the uninformed, they’re the guys who did Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and the soon to be released End of the World. Also, Simon Pegg is Scotty in the new Star Trek movies.) I tried watching it a couple times before, but I couldn’t get past the first few minutes.

The first episode, as I recall, features Simon Pegg and some lady having it out. We’re lead to believe that they’re a married couple breaking up – but what’s really going on is they were flatmates (AKA: roommates) that were only pretending to be married, and they had some fight and so their residency has come to an end. Apparently the show is then told in flashbacks, and details the relationship of Pegg and this lady and all the wacky situations they got up to as a fake married couple. (Or I could have it totally wrong, who knows?)

What gets me is that, for the first few moments at least, the scene is very cringeworthy. I hate cringeworthy comedy – I don’t find darkly awkward moments to be very funny. So if it’s that type of humour, I wont be interested. (Although, I’m led to believe it isn’t, based on various out of context clips I’ve seen. Also, Pegg and Frost are a pretty smashing comedy duo.) So I’ll give Spaced a chance at some point.

The other cringeworthy comedy show that I can’t watch though I really want to is Peep Show, starring David Mitchell and his comedy buddy something Webb. Mitchell’s the one that I like (and I think is everyone’s favorite), primarily because he’s got an inherently funny voice. However, the first episode of Peep Show I had to turn it off.

First, there’s an incident on the bus where Mitchell has this crush on a girl, but when they go to sit down together, the girl sits on Mitchell’s hand. So Mitchell has this big internal dialogue about whether he should move his hand or let her know his hand is down there – but as he’s mentally debating what to do, the girl figures out she’s sitting on his hand and then leaves in a huff (or gives him the silent treatment or something.)

The subsequent scene starring Mitchell features him sitting down at a table talking to some other pretty girl, when his internal dialogue says something like, “Oh no, I have to poo. Urgently!” – I turned it off at that point. Yeah yeah… shitting yourself in front of a pretty girl is embarassing. But I just couldn’t handle the buildup and him shitting himself.

Too bad, ’cause the other Mitchell and Webb programs were hilarious. Notably, That Mitchell and Webb Look was screamingly funny. I’m sure if I can get past that first episode, Peep Show will be a scream. Maybe I should just trust in Mitchell and his inherently funny voice that comedy will shine through…

Finally, the other show I haven’t seen due to its cringeworthiness is The Office. (I’m talking of course about the BBC office, not the American version.) Now, I know that I should probably download and watch it immediately, since it’s Gervais and Merchant… but I just couldn’t get into it.

For starters, I absolutely cannot understand what Gervais is mumbling about most of the time. And it’s more of that cringe worthy comedy, again. Although, I haven’t tried watching BBC’s The Office in like, 6 years, so maybe my ears have adapted to the weird way the English have of speaking English.

As an aside, how can the English fuck up the English language so much? My rule of thumb is, if you’re speaking the language that your country is named after, you had better be able to pronounce some basic fucking words. “Ooo-right” is not the same as “alright.”